The “moderates” we have been funding, arming, and training for the
past few years couldn’t have come up with a better plan to suck us into the
Syrian quagmire. After crying “Wolf!” for so long – what with chemical
attacks supposedly inflicted by the infinitely evil Bashar al-Assad, and other
tall tales of dubious provenance – the rebels had lost all credibility. What
to do? Desperate to increase the decibel level of calls for US military action
in the region, they resorted to targeting the US media in hopes that the outrage
generated would push the Americans into war.

And the ruse certainly seems to be working. That’s their battlefield, after all: the Syrian Mod Squad has never been an effective fighting force on the ground in Syria, but when it comes to dominating the Western media landscape they’ve been wildly successful. According to their many friends in the Fourth Estate, those lovable cuddly “moderate” Islamists wouldn’t hurt a flea – after all, they’ve been “vetted,” haven’t they?

What a grisly joke.

The immoderate kidnapping of Sotloff surely eviscerates the argument that we
could’ve been spared the existence of ISIS if only we’d gone full bore in supporting
the Syrian Free Army. Yes, if only we’d handed Syria over to them the way they
handed Sotloff over to ISIS everything would be hunky dory. That makes sense
– in Bizarro World.

Yet Bizarro World “logic” is exactly what has been determining US
policy in the region ever since the “Arab Spring,” when the Obama
administration decided to hop on board the “revolution,” co-opt all
that energy, and use it to generate support for regime change throughout the
region. The results have been an unmitigated disaster, to wit:

In Libya we overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, “liberating” the country with the help of – and at the urging of – our European allies. The Libyans expressed their gratitude by murdering our Ambassador, trashing our embassy, and plunging the country into Somali-like chaos.

In Egypt we backed a “moderate” Islamist regime, throwing longtime American sock-puppet Hosni Mubarrak overboard without so much as a by-your-leave – and wound up supporting an even worse “secular” military dictatorship.

In Syria, we plotted to overthrow another Gaddafi-like secular despot, aligning with those lovable “moderate” Islamists – many of whom would soon defect to ISIS, taking their US-supplied arsenal with them.

As I’ve said in this space from the beginning, ISIS has “Made in USA” stamped all over it – and I don’t mean that just figuratively. Yes, our wrong-headed policies have so alienated the Sunnis that they’ve resorted to supporting the fanatics of ISIS, but it’s worse than that. It is literally true that we armed, trained, and deployed these monsters – what we might call the Islamist Frankenstein Brigade – and now they’ve turned on us with a vengeance.

Well then, so what? So what if our crazy policy of empowering Islamist militias in Libya and overthrowing Assad in Syria led us to this horrific pass: the monster is rampaging over the entire region and we’ve got to act fast before it takes Baghdad – right?

Wrong. To begin with, contrary to US government officials and their media echo chamber, ISIS represents little threat to the continental US. If we can’t corral the few dozen Americans who’ve gone over there to fight on behalf of our self-proclaimed allies, the darling rebels, then where have the billions spent on “homeland security” gone?

The principal victims of ISIS are those who actually live in the region: the Syrians, the Iranians, and the Iraqis. The Turks and the Kurds have a lot to lose, too, if ISIS triumphs: so why not let them take care of the problem? Senator Rand Paul, in an interview with Sean Hannity, proposed exactly that:

“Right now, the two allies that have the same goal would be Iran and Syria, to wipe out ISIS. They also have the means, and the ability, and they also have the incentive to do so because [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad’s clinging for power and clinging for life there.”

What could make more sense? Yet it’s precisely because it’s the logical solution that it’s being ruled out of order. The well-known high “moral standards” of the US government absolutely forbid such a course: Assad, we are told, is “killing his own people.” He’s a monster, and even indirectly helping him maintain his power is impermissible – because, you see, “the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend” is a Very Bad Principle to adopt because … well, just because. Not to mention the poor, persecuted Sunnis who will be “alienated” from us, and we just couldn’t have that, now could we? Far better to risk American lives, expend our resources, and bear the burden of empire alone, pure in our virtuous martyrdom.

Among the more incredible arguments along these lines is made by foreign policy maven Daniel Larison, who weaves a strange and entirely illogical theory around the idea that “Assad benefits from ISIS’ continued existence. As long as ISIS appears to be the main alternative to him and his regime in Syria, he is much more secure, and so at least in the short to medium term he has little reason to want them destroyed. One might think that he would have an incentive to destroy this group, but in practice he hasn’t been trying to do this.”

There are two groups in the climate debate: those who believe human CO2 is causing global warming/climate change and those who don’t, respectively labeled Warmists and Skeptics. Warmists try to deny the difference, arguing skeptics are simply wrong. They refuse to debate, claiming the debate is over, which is like saying the science is settled. Both sides believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas causing warming, but disagree on the amount. Warmists claim it explains 90 percent, Skeptics an insignificant amount. Both avoid the real issue that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, as demonstrated in the book Slaying the Sky Dragon. Warmists claim their computer models prove it. Skeptics do it by talking about climate sensitivity. They are both wrong, but the Skeptics are still practicing science and will adjust their views. It’s the difference between the science and political science of climatology.

The Warmist position is fixed because it was achieved by corruption of the science and the scientific method. Science advances through proposing a hypothesis. Scientists then function as skeptics and challenge the assumptions on which they are based. The hypothesis became fact through the design of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It’s the pattern of science driven by environmentalism as a political agenda. Deliberate personal and professional attacks sidelined the few who tried to be scientific skeptics. These attacks were reinforced by mainstream media, who also accepted and promoted the hypothesis.

Warmists were on a treadmill defending the hypothesis. Over 6000 leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) delineate the challenges and political rather than scientific responses. It required three major activities. A steady flow of material that appeared to provide proof; rejection of evidence that contradicted the hypothesis; and efforts to silence critics and control research and publications.

Several years ago at a conference someone questioned CO2 as a greenhouse gas. A senior climate skeptic gave what I considered a political answer. He said it was foolish to say it was not a greenhouse gas. The best approach is to say the human contribution was insignificant. I disagreed, but had inadequate understanding of physics to openly challenge.

A rumor claims that Donald Sterling’s girlfriend V.Stiviano used to be a man. (Photo : Instagram)

The world is now eager to find out everything there is to know about Donald Sterling’s girlfriend (or mistress) V. Stiviano. The 31-year-old model is the woman who reportedly leaked audiotapes in which Sterling was making racist remarks about African Americans.

Sterling is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers but after the tapes leaked, the NBA banned him for life. Before the scandal, not much was known about V. Stiviano. She was often spotted sitting courtside at basketball games and flaunted her lavish lifestyle on Instragram but was a relative unknown.

In a new report by Media Take Out, the gossip site suggests that the model might have been born a man.

“Breaking News: We Now Have Some Very Convincing Evidence… That the Racist Clippers Owner’s Girlfriend… Is a Transgendered American!!” the site’s headline read.

MTO’s “proof” was that Stiviano has “very manly hands” and likes to wear men’s watches. That’s not much evidence to go on.

“Peep them hands… when have you ever in your life seen a woman with hands like that???” the site wrote and included a close-up picture of her hands.

According to Rumor Fix, Stiviano was not born a man and claims that legal documents revealed that her birth name is Maria Vanessa Perez. The Daily Mail reports that Stiviano changed her mane in 2010 to separate herself from her troubled childhood.

In court documents seen by the Daily Mail (which they chose not to publish because of their “sensitive nature”) she says that she wanted to change her name because she hadn’t “yet been fully accepted because of my race.”

Her mother is said to be Mexican and her father is believed to be African American. According to the Daily Mail, Stiviano was born in San Antonio, Texas but had a rough upbringing surrounded by poverty. Her mother, who reportedly didn’t have a job, was convicted on trying to use her children to steal items from a grocery store.

Now, the model lives in a $1.8 million condo in Los Angeles, drives a bright red Ferrari (and has numerous other luxury cars), and a closet full of designer clothes. It is said that Sterling was the one footing the bill for her lavish lifestyle.

SASABE, SONORA – Has a unit of Mexican Army soldiers who patrol right on the Arizona border gone rogue?

This small group has attacked U.S. citizens, and even challenged U.S. federal agents within the U.S. A News 4 Tucson investigation into the dangerous world of rogue soldiers in mexico’s military.

In January, soldiers from this lonely outpost of the Mexican Army drew their guns on U.S. Border Patrol agents just 50 yards into the United States. Then in March, they opened fire on Javier Jose Rodriguez, a young Tucson man visiting family in Sásabe when he was driving around the town early on a Saturday morning after drinking beers with friends. Rodriguez was shot in the arm and in the side, he spent three weeks at University of Arizona Medical Center.

The United States’ reaction has been tepid, angering people who live and patrol along the Arizona border.

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) revealed details of the January encounter between soldiers from this base and the Border Patrol. In a letter to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Coburn said a lone agent encountered two Mexican soldiers 50 yards inside the U.S. The agent and the soldiers drew their weapons; the soldiers carried G-3 rifles.

“From what I understand, this has happened hundreds of times before,” says Sylvia Longmire, a border security analyst whose recent book, Border Insecurity, details the challenges and failings of some Homeland Security operations along the Arizona-Sonora border. The soldiers told the agent they’d gotten lost while pursuing a drug smuggler.

“However, I believe there was some confusion as to whether that’s what the Mexican Army was doing because there was no evidence found by the Border Patrol of any drug smugglers in the area,” Longmire said.Reports obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act show that members of Mexico’s Army have crossed into the U.S. at least 300 times over the past 18 years.

On a Tuesday morning, KVOA’s Lupita Murillo spoke with the commander of the base. He said the last unit rotated out and that an entirely new unit took its place.

But reports show that across the entire border, soldiers have driven into Texas, landed helicopters in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and encountered Border Patrol agents within the United States.

The injured Rodriguez says he wants justice. His medical bills are now over $43,000. He says he intends to pay those off when he goes back to work. He also thinks it’s wrong that these soldiers crossed into arizona and threatened american federal agents.

“I mean, it’s very nerve-wracking,” said Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol’s union in the Tucson Sector, Local 2544. “A lot of these encounters happen in the middle of the night where, you know, the lighting is low and you don’t know who you’re encountering. You’re sitting there and seeing a group of guys coming up to you and they’re all carrying long-arms, you don’t know what you’re encountering.”

Sources in the U.S. State Department say they believe Mexico’s Attorney General is looking into that March attack. But nobody is investigating why these soldiers cross into Arizona.

Arivaca resident, Ronald Ayers said in 2006, a Mexican Army helicopter in the area crossed the border and landed in the U.S. about 300 yards across the border.

“A helicopter flew very low. Flew around behind the barn, landed and then several men got out all clad in black with masks over their face and body armor, carrying what looked to be full automatic weapons,” Ayers recalls. What frustrates him, even now, is that he never heard another word about the incident after he was interviewed by both the FBI and Customs and Border Protection.

Sen. Koburn ordered the Homeland Security Department to produce answers into the Mexican Army incursion by early February. A senior senate aide tells KVOA News 4, as of this week, the agency hasn’t responded to the senator’s demand.

In November 2009, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling settled a lawsuit in which the Department of Justice alleged that Sterling had discriminated against Hispanics, blacks and families without children in his rental properties. The lawsuit contained testimony that Sterling had suggested Hispanics were poor tenants because they “smoke, drink, and just hang around the building,” and that “black tenants smell and attract vermin.” The settlement cost him and his insurers $2.73 million.

The NBA and the national media said virtually nothing. That same year, the NAACP gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2005, Sterling signed a check for more than $5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that he had attempted to prevent non-Koreans from renting in his facilities in Koreatown.

The NBA and the national media said virtually nothing.

This week, Sterling’s 31-year-old girlfriend, V. Stiviano, released a tape of the 80-year-old racist being an 80-year-old racist. Sterling apparently told Stiviano he didn’t want her posting pictures of black men on her Instagram account and didn’t want her bringing black men to Clippers games.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Magma levels are slowly rebuilding inside Mount St. Helens, a volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980 and killed 57 people, although there was no sign of an impending eruption, U.S. scientists said.

The roughly 8,300-foot volcano erupted in an explosion of hot ash and gas on May 18, 1980, spewing debris over some 230 square miles and causing more than a billion dollars in property damage. Entire forests were crushed and river systems altered in the blast, which began with a 5.2 magnitude earthquake.

“The magma reservoir beneath Mount St. Helens has been slowly re-pressurizing since 2008,” the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement on Wednesday. “It is likely that re-pressurization is caused by (the) arrival of a small amount of additional magma 4 to 8 km (2.5 to 5 miles) beneath the surface.”

The USGS said this is to be expected with an active volcano and does not indicate “the volcano is likely to erupt anytime soon.”

The USGS, and the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at University of Washington, closely monitor ground deformation and seismicity at the volcano. This summer, they will also measure its released gases and gravity field, measurements that can be used to monitor subsurface magma and forecast eruptions.

Ukraine’s statement at the UN that ‘16,000 Russian soldiers had been deployed’ across Crimea sparked a MSM feeding frenzy that steadfastly ignored any hard facts that got in their way.

Especially unwelcome is the fact that the so-called ‘invasion
force’ has been there for 15 years already.

The media many trust described in hysterical tones how the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea was under a full-scale Russian
invasion with headlines like: “Ukraine says Russia sent
16,000 troops to Crimea”, “Ukraine crisis deepens as
Russia sends more troops into Crimea,” as well as “What
can Obama do about Russia’s invasion of Crimea?”.

Facts, and ardent statements by top Russian diplomats were
totally ignored by the western ‘war press’.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin pointed to the longstanding
25,000 troop allowance while FM Sergey Lavrov stressed the
Russian military “strictly executes the agreements which
stipulate the Russian fleet’s presence in Ukraine, and follows
the stance and claims coming from the legitimate authority in
Ukraine and in this case the legitimate authority of the
Autonomous Republic Crimea as well.”
So here they are, the facts:

1) A Russian naval presence in Crimeadates to 1783 when the port city of Sevastopol
was founded by Russian Prince Grigory Potemkin. Crimea was part
of Russia until Nikita Khruschev gave it to Ukraine in 1954.

2) In 1997, amid the wreckage of the USSR,
Russia & Ukraine signed a Partition Treaty determining the
fate of the military bases and vessels in Crimea. The deal
sparked widespread officer ‘defections’ to Russia and
was ratified by the Russian & Ukrainian parliaments in 1999.
Russia received 81.7 percent of the fleet’s ships after paying
the Ukrainian government US$526.5 million.

3) The deal allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet
to stay in Crimea until 2017. This was extended
by another 25 years to 2042 with a 5-year extension option in
2010.

Virgin CEO Richard Branson said that those who are skeptical of man-made global warming should “get out of our way,” joining the ranks of CEOs lashing out against those opposed to business investments in “sustainability.”

Branson made his remarks in the wake of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s telling global warming skeptics to “get out of this stock” if they did not agree with the company’s green investment strategy. Cook made his comments after being confronted by a free-market activist who pressed him on putting the environment ahead of profitable investments.

“If you want me to do things only for [return on investment] reasons, you should get out of this stock,” Cook told a representative of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Branson said that more businesses should follow Apple’s example and fight back against global warming skepticism.

“Tim [Cook] took a crucial stand: he told shareholders who oppose Apple’s commitment to sustainability to ‘get out of the stock’,” Branson wrote on his blog. “He also commented on how doing business sustainably can actually improve the bottom line. This is something we strongly believe in at The B Team, which is working hard to encourage better ways of doing business for the wellbeing of people and the planet. We wholeheartedly support him.”

“More businesses should be following Apple’s stance in encouraging more investment in sustainability,” Branson said. “While Tim told sustainability sceptics to ‘get out of our stock’, I would urge climate change deniers to get out of our way.”

Branson has been a huge proponent of renewable energy development. Recently, the business mogul launched plans to turn the Caribbean into a green energy powerhouse. The plan is to get islands of off use diesel generators as a main power source and onto renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

In February, Branson hosted a summit of “financiers, politicians, energy companies, lawyers and others on Moskito and Necker to work up a plan to ‘green’ the Caribbean, island by island,” reports the UK Guardian.

“Five prime ministers and 12 governments, as well as international bankers and investors, heard renewable energy experts explain how the region’s islands, which currently generate nearly all their electricity from diesel, could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year and reduce emissions by 50% or more,” the Guardian noted.

Branson’s company Virgin even has an investment fund that specializes in green investments. The Virgin Green Fund is a “leading, independent mid-cap buy-out and growth private equity firm investing capital in the resource efficiency, consumer sustainability, and renewable energy sectors in North America and Europe.”

It was reported that the company had investments in the Obama administration-back solar company Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy in 2011 after receiving a $535 million government-backed loan guarantee.

On February 28, MRCTV’s Dan Joseph decided to stop by the DNC winter meeting to ask committee members just how much of the opposition to President Obama is racist.

Joseph asked, How much of the opposition is race-based? And how much is policy based?

One commiteewoman said about half of the president’s detractors are against him because of his race, while another said it was over 50%.

The lowest guesstimate we got from a committee person was between 30-40%, which is still a ridiculous figure. And as always, there was some Bush bashing from folks, like calling the 43rd President of the United States illiterate, which is patently false.

If the US/EU backed overthrow of the Ukrainian government last month had a face, that face would be Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). McCain is the “Energizer Bunny” of US interventionism: wherever there is a government to subvert, a regime to change, chaos to foment, there you will find McCain in its midst.

He snuck into Syria to highlight the dominance of moderates that the US should support. But the world is now interconnected and soon it was known that McCain’s moderates in Syria were in fact radicals and kidnappers. He snuck into Libya to receive an award from the military the same day Sharia law was approved.

But these are small potatoes. Russia has always been the prize for McCain. His International Republican Institute (IRI), a Cold War relic funded by US taxpayers, routinely funded subversive NGOs in Russia to undermine the political system.

From the early days of the protests in Ukraine, McCain was there, in Maidan square, meeting with and encouraging those whose intent was a violent overthrow of a democratically elected government. The ends justifies the means, and McCain supped with a number of unsavorycharacters to supercharge his plans.

Now that the US-sponsored regime change is complete in Ukraine, McCain has his biggest thrill: unlike the small and weak other countries that his IRI had picked on, Russia has not rolled over.

A nuclear armed Russia facing off with a nuclear armed US would lead most normal people to search for alternatives to possible total annihilation. Not McCain. He wants a military option.

Asked by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell about options for a US attack on Russia, McCain said, “I’d love to tell you that there is Andrea, but frankly I do not see it. I wish that there were. … I do not see a military option and it’s tragic.”

These are America’s leaders in perhaps the most dangerous period in a half century. Do you feel safe?